


so far (it's alright)

by nightwideopen



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Coming Out, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, M/M, Magical Realism, No Smut, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 13:10:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14057658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwideopen/pseuds/nightwideopen
Summary: Louis shakes their head again. Their head. His head. Maybe. It makes no fucking sense and he clenches his jaw because it’s not fair it’s not fair.“I don’t know, Nick,” he cries softly, helplessly. “I don’t know what’s going on inside me own fuckin’ head, how am I supposed to explain it to you?”





	so far (it's alright)

**Author's Note:**

> apparently my new thing is projecting all of my gender and sexuality struggles onto fictional louis. this is meant to be personal so . im not really gonna apologise for anything for once haha. except for leaving this unbetaed. also if you happen to take anything away from this im always free to talk if you need someone so feel free to message me on tumblr. dont go it alone like i do!!!! 
> 
> title from the notable so far (it's alright) by the 1975 , which was the first song that came on . shuffle when i hit the 1975 on my spotify.

Louis is pretty sure that Nick has no concept of volume control.

From the moment they met, when Nick was screaming along to a track that was playing at maybe half a decibel, this theory has been in place. And now, as Louis is trying to sleep but all he can hear is the horrible racket that Nick is making by banging around in the dark, his theory holds. It can’t be more than half past four in the morning, judging by Louis’ eyes and their unwillingness to actually open. The dogs don’t seem to mind, curling up on either side of Louis and between his legs. He envies them.

“Oi!” Louis grabs whatever’s lying on his bedside table - it feels like his lighter - and flings it in the general direction of the noise. “Do you actually fucking mind?”

A whisper shout of “ _Shit_ ,” comes from across the room. 

Louis can sense Nick’s tangible presence standing over him before he physically feels Nick’s hand petting his head. Nick’s energy is always so loud, hard to miss; Louis can tell where Nick is the moment he steps into a room.

“I’m sorry, love, just trying find my phone. Didn’t want to turn the light on.”

Louis grumbles. The petting feels nice. His body starts to thrum with it, his magic’s equivalent to  a kitten’s purr. It calms him down, and he knows Nick can feel it too by the soft chuckle that comes from above.

“Get back in bed you bloody lunatic. The fuck d’you need your phone for in the middle of the night?” He’s slurring all his words but he’s fairly certain that it’s understandable. At least he hopes so.

Nick’s mouth must fall open because not a moment later Louis can hear his teeth clack when he shuts it. He doesn’t like that. Nick always gives up answers easily, especially to him. Too honest for his own good. It’s made Louis’ life, and their relationship, incredibly easy thus far. 

“Nothing. It’s stupid. You’re right, we should both get back to sleep. Have to be up in an hour.”

Louis keeps his eyes shut as Nick clambers back into bed, refusing to open them for fear that he’ll be unable to close them again. Falling asleep is hard enough. Much to Louis’ dismay, Nick shoos the dogs off of the bed so that he can sling an arm over Louis’ back. 

“That wasn’t very nice,” Louis mumbles.

“Sorry doggies.” Nick noses into Louis’ neck, not seeming very sorry at all. Every bit of Louis’ magic rushes to the point of contact, buzzing happily. “It’s my turn though, they’ve had you all night.”

It’s more so that Louis had the dogs, but he’s too tired to argue for the sake of it. He just hums, tucking his arms under his pillow and toying with the blue bracelet on his wrist. He’s not so sure about it anymore and he squirms a little.

The slight squirming probably becomes more obvious as his body starts to feel less like his own. His magic stutters, the weak energy bouncing off the inside of his skull just like it does every time his brain changes its mind. The air around them falls flat, and it’s not the first time that Louis wishes his magic wasn’t directly linked to his comfort within himself.

“Alright?” Nick asks.

Louis nods. “Fine.” 

They’re lying, though, and Nick can probably tell. Louis is wide awake now, body trembling slightly, enough that it can be passed off as cold if it were January, maybe. But it’s July and Nick’s body is a furnace and their air conditioning broke a week ago. Louis tried to fix it but magic and electricity don’t always mix. The room nearly caught fire.

“Hey. Hey, Lou?”

Louis doesn’t want to talk about it, doesn’t ever want to talk about it. They don’t even know why they came up with the bracelet system at all. Louis keeps tabs for themself, maybe, to make it more real, more valid. Because Nick doesn’t _know_. He’s never going to know. It’s so ridiculous, all of it. Louis’ fear of being honest, their discomfort but unwillingness to fix it. A catch-22 of the self sabotaging kind.

“Yeah?” It comes out horribly croaky. “S’fine, just go back to sleep.”

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m aware.”

Nick reaches over Louis’ head with his weird long arms and turns on the lamp with far too much ease. He makes Louis turn over to face him, head propped up on his hand. Louis tries to turn it off with their magic but it just flickers.

“Talk to me.”

It sounds odd coming out of Nick’s mouth. They don’t do this. They don’t _talk_ , the two of them. They’re supposed to have unspoken agreements and Nick is supposed to tell Louis everything they want to know and never ever ask Louis anything because Louis’ actions speaking louder than their words. They’ve never been good with that. The talking. It took them a year just to build up the courage to tell Nick that he was _maybe_ alright enough for Louis to want to spend more time with and that they didn’t hate him the way they’d been pretending to. 

“I know you don’t like it,” Nick says. “I know it’s hard. But please? Don’t want you to bottle things up. S’just me.” He places his hand on Louis’ stomach, not enough to tickle but enough for Louis to inhale sharply. 

Louis shakes their head.

“Fine, how about this.” Nick manoeuvres himself so that he’s cuddled up next to Louis again, one arm disappearing under the pillow beneath Louis’ head. He settles his head on Louis’ shoulder, and they can smell their own shampoo in Nick’s hair. “I’ll tell you why I was looking for my phone and you tell me what’s wrong. Deal? Truth for truth?”

It sounds fair enough, but Louis’ heart beats faster anyway. They feel like they’re going cry and it’s horribly obvious by the stuttered inhales they’re taking. Nick doesn’t say anything, just presses his cheek into Louis’ shoulder and takes a deep breath.

“Yeah alright,” Louis says, voice catching. “Deal.”

Nick takes another deep breath, and Louis doesn’t know if he’s trying to calm himself or if he’s just breathing Louis in. His hand stills on Louis’ stomach, drifts up to where Louis has their hands resting on their chest and holds them tight. 

“You’re just… so wonderfully confusing. You’re so amazingly odd and I love that about you but. But sometimes you worry me. It’s the things you don’t tell me that worry me the most.” Nick sniffles, though it seems more out of the awkwardness than anything. “I try to look things up sometimes, when you’re asleep. Google. Because I know there’s something bothering you and, like, making you sad, you know? I can tell. You’ve been all distant and weird.” 

Nick grips Louis’ hands tighter. Louis doesn’t move, body suddenly very stiff like if they move then Nick will stop talking.

“And it just drives me mad not being able to figure out what it is. I don’t want you to tell me for the sake of it, ‘cos I’m not gonna force you to. I just hope you know that you can trust me with anything, especially something that’s upsetting you. I’m here no matter what, yeah? Unconditionally.” He sighs. “And the internet isn’t gonna tell me what’s going on inside your head, only you can. You don’t have to, I just wish you would. ‘Cos I love you and I want to help, alright? In any way that I can.”

Louis’ stomach twists up in a horribly terrifying way. It’s guilt and gratitude and betrayal all at once. Irrational anger seeps into their bones but is quickly replaced with inexplicable exhaustion. Louis is _tired_. Tired of having to hide, lie and say that it’s fine, leaving Nick’s ignorance to make them uncomfortable. Nick doesn’t know any better, and that’s no one’s fault but Louis’ for not being brave enough to ask him to help work out the maddening seesaw that their brain seems to be on. 

All Louis can do to try and stop the tears from spilling is flipping their positions so that Louis’ face is hidden in Nick’s chest, the soft cotton of his t-shirt brushing against Louis’ nose. 

“I’m sorry,” Louis says. “I trust you, I promise I do. It’s just–”

“Hey, no. None of that.” Nick wraps his arms securely around Louis, rubbing his back gently. It all feels so fragile. “You don’t haven’t prove anything to me. If you want to tell me, you can. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want, okay? We can just go back to sleep, it’s fine.”

Louis shakes their head again. Their head. His head. Maybe. It makes no fucking sense and he clenches his jaw because it’s not fair it’s not _fair._

“I don’t _know_ , Nick,” he cries softly, helplessly. “I don’t know what’s going on inside me own fuckin’ head, how am I supposed to explain it to you?”

“Just tell me what you’re thinking,” Nick whispers. “Just what’s bothering you, right now.”

Louis gets choked up, his tongue stuttering on the words. He pushes himself off of Nick, his body feeling more familiar now, his magic surging back and the lamp flicking off. He turns it back on, plucks the bracelet off of the nightstand and places it in Nick’s hands, ducking his head and hiding his undoubtedly tear-streaked face. 

“Just ask me. I don’t know what to tell you so you’re gonna have to ask me.”

Out of his periphery Louis can see Nick turning over the bracelet in his hands.

“What do they mean?”

Louis clears his throat. “They’re based on how I’m feeling at the time. Blue means boy, the grey one means not sure.” He has another one. It’s orange. He hasn’t had to use it yet. “Sometimes I don’t feel like anything at all. My pronouns change. I use the bracelets as like, I dunno, validation. To make it more real. Acknowledging that something about me is different.” It sounds ridiculous, he knows it does.

“But why?”

Louis laughs, shrugging. He sounds mad, he knows he does.

“I bought them because I was going to tell you. Because sometimes it makes me uncomfortable when I’m not feeling, I guess _boyish_ , and you call me your boyfriend or something. Or you’re on the phone to your mum and you say _yeah, he’s alright._ But I never told you. So it was just for me, then.” He laughs again. “It’s stupid. I haven’t got a name for it like everyone else online seems to. They’ve all got it figured out and all I can figure out is that sometimes my body doesn’t feel right, sometimes it does. I don’t know.”

“It’s not stupid,” Nick whispers.

Louis chances a glance at him, and his face is all twisted up in the way that Louis didn’t want.

“Please don’t make that face.”

But Nick looks so disappointed. “I’m sorry. For all the times I made you feel uncomfortable.”

“It’s alright,” Louis promises. “You didn’t know.”

The silence is heavy and the room is humming and the dogs are snoring lightly. Everything feels the same, but so much different. Louis feels different, better, but worse. Guilty. Lighter. It’s messy and imperfect, but that sounds enough like him.

“And now?” Nick asks, eyes wide and confused but so understanding.

Louis holds out his wrist, a soft, watery smile on his face. Nick gets the message and slips on the bracelet. As soon as he does he gets a tight hold on Louis’ arm and uses it to pull him into a hug.

“Promise me you’ll tell me if I muck it up,” Nick says into Louis’ neck. “Don’t let me mess up. Kick me if you must. I don’t ever want to make you feel uncomfortable if I can help it, alright?” 

Louis nods, closes his eyes. He feels so, so safe, his magic buzzing between them.

Nick’s alarm sounds off just beneath them, startling the dogs and ringing through the early morning. Louis groans loudly and tackles him into the bed.

“You bloody fucking _monster_. Turn it _off_!”

Pig inserts herself into the commotion, licking Nick’s face as he laughs and begs for Louis to stop tugging on his hair. And it’s alright.


End file.
